


The Wilds of the North

by DeTaverny



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Forced to rape loved one, M/M, Rape to Maintain Cover, Raping loved one to save them from worse fate, Seal Prince Made Them Do It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-05-31 12:45:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15119678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeTaverny/pseuds/DeTaverny
Summary: The Seal Prince agreed not to kill Marcus for smiling at his sister. Instead, he asks Esca for a different kind of retribution.





	The Wilds of the North

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redcandle17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/gifts).



Delighted to find another Briton of rank, the Seal Prince had taken pains to walk Esca all over the territory his people claimed, and had wanted to spar a couple of times. However, even with all the walking and fighting, Esca felt that he had been as stony as marble, upright and clenching all of his muscles, even as he tried (awkwardly) to smile and appear friendly.

Esca tended towards stillness as a rule. When he’d first been taken into slavery, he learned how to be still so as to blend into the background; masters tended to be kinder to the slaves they forgot were there. Later, as a gladiator, he had feared movement even more. Knowing that the tiniest of gestures could give one’s plan of attack away, he had honed stillness into something deadly.

By the time of his last day in the arena, stillness remained a habit, even though Esca had ceased to care about his hide and his life. In the past couple of days, however, he had discovered that he did value something. Ever since falling in with the Seal People, Marcus’s life had become at risk.

He had barely seen Marcus, and had been afraid to look for him overmuch for fear the Seal People would read something in his gaze that should not have been in the gaze of a man towards his slave. He was afraid they would see something like what Esca had sometimes seen in Marcus’s gaze—friendliness, warmth, fondness.

After today, though, he doubted he’d ever see that warmth in Marcus’s eyes again. Marcus had threatened to kill him with the kind of iron determination that must have gotten him promoted fast for his years in the Roman Army. Armies had fallen before that determination. Even Esca’s stone heart had squeezed.

“Where is your slave?” the Seal Prince asked in between courses. “The one who smiles at women that aren’t his to smile at.”

Tonight, the Prince had invited Esca to sup with him in the central hut. Even though all he wanted to do was curl up in his guest hut and plan for a way to get out of this horrible situation, Esca knew, better than most, what a great honor such an invitation was, and how offensive a refusal might be.

“I do not know where he is. I haven’t seen him since this afternoon. I apologize again for what happened. As I told you…”

“I know. I know. You are so sorry that you would have let me kill him. But I didn’t. You are a guest, and it is not my place to deprive you your property.”

“I thank you for your generosity and…”

“But I have thought of another way to make him pay. One that will not harm him. Not permanently, at least.”

Esca withdrew even more into stillness as he steeled himself for whatever new challenge this conversation would bring. He focused all movement on chewing his meat, drawing the moment out in order to seem not to care.

Finally, he asked, “And what is that?”

“Let me take him.”

“I thought you didn’t want to deprive me of my property,” Esca said. But then he looked up. The gleam in the Seal Prince’s eye told him the explanation before the words found voice.

“You will get him back, I promise. But I know something of how particular these Romans are. The shame they feel about things that you or I would barely notice. I have long wanted to fuck one, just to watch their fragile sense of ‘citizen’ crumble beneath my hands. To watch their shame grow as they come on my cock. That slave of yours has a proud look, for all his lameness. He would crumble very satisfyingly.”

“He was a centurion, like his father before him,” Esca said to fill the conversation as his mind raced. 

“Then that will make the conquest all the more delicious.”

Marcus had faced so much debasement already—at the hands of the army, of that useless Placidus, of everyone who dared to look at him with pity. Esca could not bear to see him suffer even more humiliation, but he also could not jeopardize their position or create suspicion. 

Esca wondered when he had come to care for the tender sensibilities of some Roman.

“Yes, fuck him,” one of the other head clansmen said. 

“Fuck him so that he knows who are the true masters of Briton,” another said. 

A general murmur, though not an actual cheer, went up. Most of the men were too busy eating to much care where the Prince stuck his cock. Meat had become scarce, Esca had learned, and this was one of the first feasts they had had in some weeks. 

“What do you say, Esca?” the prince asked.

Esca wished he could be sure what Marcus would prefer—to die without having avenged his name or submit in order to keep the quest alive another day. If it had been him, he knew he would easily have chosen the latter. 

“Call him in,” Esca said

A few minutes later, a group of boys pushed a confused Marcus into the hut. Although Esca had been given new, clean clothes befitting his rank, Marcus wore the same dirty tunic he had ridden in throughout their journey. His face bore stains of the mud through which he’d trudged to bring water to the camp earlier that day. He limped slightly, as he always did when he’d pushed himself too hard.

Esca knew all the signs, better even than Uncle Aquila. Better, even, than Marcus himself. And now he had agreed to let this Prince push Marcus even farther. 

He gnawed at his hunk of goat leg with even more pretended gusto, even as his stomach clenched in revolt and disgust. The Seal Prince leaned back on his log with palpable excitement and anticipation. For all his affected languor, Esca could detect real desire there—and not just to humiliate a Roman. He yearned for Marcus’s body, for the feel of him. He wanted him.

Somehow, this made it worse, and an ugly coil churned deep in Esca’s belly. A possessive fury he could not remember having ever having possessed the luxury to feel. He had spent eight years as a slave; he owned nothing and cared for no one. Until Marcus, apparently.

“You! Come here, slave,” the Seal Prince said. “Fill your master’s cup, and mine.” 

Marcus continued to stand dumbly in the entrance. One of the serving women handed him a jug of beer and kicked him in Esca’s direction. It was enough to convey the message. He moved to fill their glasses, sullenly glaring daggers at all of them.

“Very fine. A very fine specimen of Roman,” the Prince said, watching Marcus move like an appraising customer at a brothel. I imagine you have had him many a time. Is he as good a fuck as he looks?”

“No,” Esca said, hoping futilely to put the prince off. “But I did not take him as my slave for that. He has other, better uses.”

“It doesn’t seem that you have taught him any of our tongue,” the prince said when Marcus failed to react to this conversation.

“No,” Esca grunted. Mere months ago, his answer should have been easy and truthful to vocalize, but right now, it all felt like a lie. “Roman ears are not worthy to speak our dialects.”

“I cannot tell if his lack of understanding will make this more or less satisfying,” the prince mused as he stood up. “But no mind. I will still enjoy this immensely.”

He drained his cup and strode over to the side of the hut to which Marcus had retreated. A couple of the men had finished their dinner and now made themselves comfortable to watch the evening entertainment. The serving women went about their business as usual; their lives were hard enough that even a full circus act would have been of little interest to them. 

Marcus gave Esca a questioning look before remembering that he currently hated Esca. He fought against the prince’s grasp on his arm, using the wrestling tricks Esca had taught him one foolish afternoon, one of the many golden afternoons back at Aquila’s house when the lines between master and slave, enemy and friend had begun to become blurred. 

Some of the men laughed when Marcus managed to knock the Prince back a step. 

“Tell your slave to submit,” the Prince roared. 

“Oh, I think you will have to take him by force. Is that not the true way to prove your dominance?” Esca asked as jokingly as he could, filled with a wild hope that Marcus might succeed in fighting the Prince off. “But if you rip his tunic, I will ask you to provide another for him, since I have not an extra.”

Aside from their skirmish in the woods, which had been too dark and frantic to watch, Esca had never seen Marcus fight. His eyes narrowed and you could almost see his brain working out what his opponent might do next. Esca had never doubted that Marcus had been a great fighter and leader, but he appreciated it in the flesh. However, all of Marcus’s cleverness ended up being of little use, because the Prince kicked Marcus in his old wound. Marcus fell like a stone, turning a sickly grey color in the flickering candlelight, but manfully keeping himself from making the slightest noise. 

The other men chuckled when, even from the ground, Marcus continued to struggle against the Seal Prince. Only when the Prince began to rip his tunic off did he begin to realize this might be something other than normal Roman-Briton aggression. 

“Esca!” Marcus finally yelled across the room. “What is happening? Is this some contest?”

In a rare, exceptional moment of cowardice that he would regret for the rest of his life, Esca remained silent. 

The Prince, who possessed a working but hardly fluent command of Latin, laughed. “I suppose you could think of it as such.” 

Marcus was still writhing on the floor, stoically holding his leg and trying to fight off the Seal Prince. Others, most likely wishing to get on with it so that they could go to bed, rose from where they sat and moved to hold him down and pull down his braccae. 

It was only when the Seal Prince took out his already hard cock that Marcus—innocent, worthy, noble Marcus—understood what kind of contest this was. 

“Esca!” he called again. “Esca, don’t. I… I...” Marcus was unable to beg, not even now.

Esca remained frozen as he watched the Seal Prince lower himself onto his knees over Marcus’s thrashing, restrained body. Marcus struggled silently as the Seal Prince slapped him, as he spit into his palm and rubbed the spittle over his cock. Esca cringed when he saw how little of it—not that it was good for much anyway—he was using. How desperately Marcus would hurt, especially if he was as untouched in this way as the terror and confusion in his eyes suggested. He wriggled his hips from side to side, avoiding the Prince’s seeking cock. 

“He might as well give up. I _will_ have him,” the prince told no one in particular. 

After a frustrating minute of this, the Prince growled. He pulled Marcus by the hair into a somewhat upright sitting position, licked the side of his neck, and then slapped Marcus like a kitchen wench.

It was at this that Esca’s mind and limbs finally became unstuck. He scrambled to his feet and said, “No. Get off him.”

Not a moment too soon, because he could see how close the prince’s cock was to Marcus’s hole. Faster and spryer than anyone probably expected, he dashed over to Marcus and threw himself into the fracas, politely shoving the prince off him. Marcus sagged in relief, and, just for a second, held onto Esca’s leg.

“I am sorry, but I realized I could not let you. Not even to thank you for your hospitality. I… I am a jealous owner, I suppose. As a MacCunoval I ask you not to do this thing to my… to my slave.”

The prince, as befitting a well-brought up man of his rank and culture, ceased immediately when Esca worded the request like that. Disappointment was stamped all over his face, but he did lean back.

“I will see him taken though. Even if you do the honours. But make it a good show.”

The other men released Marcus and fell back, happily returning to their seats and their beer.

Esca had not fully known how his heart felt until right now, when it broke in anguish at what he was about to do and about all the uncertainty surrounding the situation. Esca had saved Marcus from the Seal Prince, but there was no backing out of this. He had deprived Marcus of this second choice—to be taken by a man of high rank or by his slave. He wondered which Marcus would have chosen, and hated the nagging feeling that perhaps Marcus would have preferred the Prince.

Marcus began to try to pull his tunic back on and his breeches back up. Esca gently pushed him back to the ground and said, “No, Marcus.”

Marcus looked up with confusion in his eyes. “What is it?”

Esca leaned over him and whispered into his ear, “I am sorry, but they will kill us if I do not. I thought this would be better, but if you would rather die, or rather he do it…”

Marcus’s face twisted in anguish, but he nodded. “I want to get the Eagle.”

Nothing about Esca, nothing about the Seal Prince, no reassurance for Esca, no answer.

“What are you talking about?” the prince asked.

“I am telling him to be calm,” Esca said in Latin, so that Marcus would understand. “Pass me some oil.”

“Oil? For a slave?” the prince asked.

“I prefer to keep him in good condition and be able to take him over and over and over again, rather than to ruin him for one night’s rough pleasure.”

“Ah, so you lied. You _have_ had him before.”

Esca thought back to what he had said earlier. “I have not, but especially for the first, I will do this correctly.”

Esca unlaced his braccae and pulled them completely off, unlike the Seal Prince, who had pulled his down just enough to pull his cock out. Esca thought he owed Marcus at least that, at least equal share in nudity and vulnerability. He was not hard, neither of them were, but they would have to get hard. 

He lay on top of Marcus, as he had during his surgery, looking sorrowfully into Marcus’s clear eyes. But this time, instead of giving him a bit, Esca reached for Marcus’s cock and palmed it gently. Marcus closed his eyes and turned his head away. Esca understood, and as he was not doing this for cruelty, he did not slap him back to the present as the Seal Prince would have. The serving woman brought him a bowl of oil. As he dipped his hand in it and stroked his cock, he wondered what Marcus was thinking of. He wondered _who_ Marcus was picturing in his place. Some general he had felt hero worship for as a young soldier? A pretty noblewoman back in Rome? Esca realized how much of this part of Marcus was a blank to him. 

He rubbed the oil over Marcus’s hole, and hated himself for feeling a thrill when Marcus bucked into his hand. Marcus’s eyes flew open when Esca slipped a single finger inside and began to fuck him gently, in and out, in and out. He continued to lean over Marcus, presenting his own bottom to the room in exchange for shielding Marcus from their stares. But this resulted in him having the entire view to himself—Marcus resplendently naked and heaving in his attempts not to react, plump lips pursed, and eyes wide with something unreadable. To harden was necessary, but Esca still felt ashamed at how quickly his body responded to the sight.

No one could see Esca’s face, so he took the opportunity to apologize. “I’m sorry,” he said, as he pulled his fingers out of Marcus’s arse—two of them, so easily having found room in the warm, tight, softness that Esca hated himself for being about to enjoy.

Marcus said nothing, but clenched when Esca grabbed his cock. 

That had been the opposite effect of what Esca had intended. 

Only when Esca brushed the hair off of his forehead, did Marcus begin to relax, and to nuzzle, just a little, into Esca’s touch.

“What is this, a romance play?” the Seal Prince called, breaking the moment. “No wonder your slave was giving you such trouble when we found you on the road. You are too sweet with him. This surprises me, for I have heard of and seen you to be a man of stillness and iron, Esca MacCunoval.

“What does he say?” Marcus whispered.

“He says I care too much for you,” Esca whispered back as he moved himself into position.

Marcus must have known what was coming next, but he didn’t look anywhere but into Esca’s eyes, and didn’t seem to care about anything except Esca’s answer to the next question. “Is he right?”

In answer, and with his heart beating wildly, he pushed into Marcus. The head of his cock was wider than the base of it, so Marcus’s eyes teared up more at the first intrusion than later on. The pleasure of it, of being welcomed, however reluctantly, into Marcus’s body caused Esca to practically collapse on top of him. He made a show of it, of his floppy ecstasy, and used the opportunity to whisper into Marcus’s ear, “He is more right than he knows.”

Marcus had not made a noise when Esca penetrated him, but he moaned now, and, to Esca’s shock, began to grow hard, plumping and lengthening between their stomachs. Esca picked up the pace, thrusting harder and with more surety with each passing minute. The faster he came, the faster this would be over. Esca tried his best to hide Marcus’s reaction from the others, but one of the men—not the prince—caught a glimpse.

“The slave likes it!” he cried.

Esca had never been so glad that he had never taught Marcus this tongue.

The Prince was staring at both Esca and Marcus with unabated lust. His hand rested inside his braccae, stroking himself in time with Esca’s thrusts. “You fuck him well, friend. A little gently, but even better, I think, than roughly. I had not thought to make him enjoy it, but you have made this even more humiliating. Do you think he will come?”

Esca didn’t answer. He didn’t know. He wanted to give Marcus pleasure, to make him come, especially if this was—and it was likely to be—the only time he ever did this. But he just as equally wanted Marcus to soften, in order to spare him this humiliation. 

He didn’t have much time to worry over it, because soon Marcus began clenching around Esca’s cocked. He looked up at Esca with panicked, horrified eyes, and this was how Esca knew that Marcus had not known it was possible to come like this, untouched, just from being fucked. At any other time, Esca would have felt proud to have fucked a man so well, to have fucked _Marcus_ so well, but now he felt sick. 

“No, no, please, no,” Marcus mouthed but would not say as he felt his orgasm approach.

But Esca could not stop, had no idea how to stop. He had to keep going, thrusting harder in hope that changing the force and angle of his thrusts might make it less… good… for Marcus. However, Marcus was too far gone. With little more than a grunt and a sigh, Esca felt warm liquid spill onto his stomach, and he saw Marcus’s face go red with shame. 

Esca had all but lost his arousal, but he could not leave the Seal Prince unsatisfied. He looked away from Marcus’s grief-stricken face, and pulled out of Marcus. Rather than come inside him, Esca stroked himself and spilled on the floor beside him. He could feel Marcus’s gaze on his cock.

The Seal Prince laughed and cheered.

“An excellent show,” he said while both Esca and Marcus got dressed again, looking anywhere but at each other.

Tomorrow night, Esca vowed, he would steal the Eagle, or help Marcus do it. He now felt as dishonoured as Marcus, and this would be the only way to expiate himself.


End file.
